The Lads welcomed Rotherham to the SoL, I hope with revenge on their minds as well as aspirations of (albeit very remote) of automatic promotion but saw the latter blown out of the water with the team selection.
Having won 5-1 at the weekend, you’d have thought that the old football adage of “you don’t change a winning team” might have applied. In my opinion, and I think I’m fairly safe in assuming I’m not alone, we should have started with either the side that finished on Saturday, or the one that got us to half time.
As it was, we utterly failed to exploit Rotherham’s weaknesses, and just didn’t get either outside or inside their fullbacks – which Hartlepool had done not too long ago, prompted by former Lad Luke Molyneux. Instead, we hoyed high balls at a big central defence against which Ross Stewart foundered – although, it has to be said, much of that foundering was down to wrestling moves the ref obviously thought legal as a result of watching too much WWF on the telly.
A completely avoidable opening goal was eventually cancelled out by a header that Niall Quinn would envy, and might just knock Armstrong and Ball down the list of greatest ever Sunderland headed goals. Certainly the best headed Own Goal I’ve seen in a Sunderland game.
As you’d expect, calculators and spreadsheets had been on overtime for the last few days, and there was a mad, if totally predictable, situation in which the correct set of results would see us automatically promoted.
As if. We are Sunderland, I said we are Sunderland.
Being a superstitious sort, I changed my undercrackers (as I had on Saturday) as the originals had been worn at Portsmouth and were thus very bad luck....and yes, they had been washed since Saturday. Every little helps, apparently. Catching up with Stu and Con in the Vaux brewery tap, we were more than tad surprised with the team selection.
Patterson
Hume Wright Batth Doyle Gooch
Matete Evans
O’Nien
Broadhead Stewart.
..and a bench of Hoffmann, Xhemajli, Neil, Roberts, Clarke, Embleton, and Pritchard. There’s five game-changing Lads on the bench, and if I was Embo I’d be throwing a radge at being left out.
Who gave the ball to Gooch almost every time he got away at the weekend?
Anyway, the team was picked, and there was surely enough quality in there to take advantage of the rotten form the visitors had produced over the last few weeks. We kicked off south, and the opening few minutes were taken up with us hoying long ones over the top, which their big lads at the back simply gobbled up. Make them turn, man! Get inside, or outside, them! Gooch came over to the right to take a free-kick on five minutes, which was cleared, and spent a little while there, giving us hope of a repeat of the weekend’s heroics, but he was back to the east side of the field fairly sharpish.
Matete looked to have won the ball fairly in the middle of the field, but the ref thought otherwise and rather harshly booked him. That yellow was all the more galling as Stewart was being very obviously manhandled at every opportunity. Think linking arms at a ceilidh, and add a bit or wrestling and you’ll get the picture.
A quarter of an hour in we conceded a corner on our left, and when it was drilled in, we simply hadn’t marked their man and he basically let the ball hit his brow and fly in. Oh, haway man Sunderland, that was basic stuff. A goal down was not where we wanted to be, and the visitors had a chance to double their advantage a few minutes later, with us having provided no threat to their goal, but fired it well wide.
We weren’t controlling the middle of the field – Matete saw plenty of the ball, but could usually only roll it to Evans, and while Cory didn’t mess things up, he’s not the Lad to play a killer ball to Broadhead or Stewart. We did win a corner with 23 gone after a decent passage of play in which Hume had shown commendable calmness, but it was cleared.
Yet another Rotherham tackle came in from behind, but the ref seemed to think that was a perfectly acceptable way to play the game, while we in the seats wondered why Matete had been booked for a far less dangerous challenge.
We were winning the ball often enough, but there was no Embo to ping it down the channels, although we did give our heads a collective shake around 35 minutes and pass it about nicely – but not nicely enough, and there were still no balls either side of the Millers’ fullbacks. We kept trying to find a target from deep in our own defence, Stewart (usually that target) was under too much pressure, legal and illegal, to take advantage, but he eventually squirmed away to the left of the box. From there, he whacked in a shot that their keeper did well to hold, but in truth it wasn’t a difficult save.
There were three added minutes, and these were largely taken up, as was the halftime break, with guesses as to who would be replaced by who for the final 45.
Nobody, as it turned out – which was a bit of a surprise to say the least, and worryingly, the shape was just the same. The errors in this were emphasised when Gooch went right to take a free kick then, as he had in the opening minutes, been a real pest on the “wrong” side – bursting onto a ball into that side of the box and cutting it back to Evans who spooned it off target - before jogging back to the left.
A late one on O’Nien brought a belated yellow card for Rotherham, ending a seven minute spell of luck in which two of their players had walloped out Lads and got away with nothing more than a wagged finger from the ref. On came Pritch for Broadhead, to a few inevitable moans from the cord, but to be honest, Nath had given the ball away a lot and looked way off his sharp best.
His appearance gave us an immediate change on potential up front, as he was doing his usual thing of zipping about behind the main striker, but unfortunately without any creation of a real goalscoring chance. We conceded a free kick, then a corner, and we were wondering if Rotherham might revert to their early season form and grab a second. Thankfully, despite their physicality in the box, Wright and Batth were up to the challenge – if only Doyle could have got it forward quicker when they got it out to him.
On the hour, and despite our screams for Embo, on came Clarke for an obviously tiring Hume, with Gooch going to the right and Clarke staying on the left. The change was instant, with Gooch instantly resuming his weekend role and running at the visiting left back. Well, not quite instant, as an opponent needed treatment for a couple of minutes before deciding that he’d rather stay on than be subbed.
Anyway, when things did get back underway, Gooch was away down the right to put in a cross that the keeper took near the penalty spot, and was ever so slightly bumped by Stewart -so he went down as if Vic Halom had piled in.
What a very obvious piece of timewasting. Anyway, Pritch got it wide to O9 after taking a pass from Clarke, and Luke’s low cross from the left was inches in front of the Loch Ness Drogba’s outstretched toe. On came Embo for Matete on 68, and at last we had a player who was likely to spot a gap and play the ball into it.
Damn! Having said that, we managed a Sunday morning spectacular, when we tool a free kick short in our own half (Embo, I think) while Evans was looking the other way, and ended up passing it to ourselves – and conceding an obvious free for obstruction when trying to get near the ball. Thankfully, Patto was up the task, and we managed to build a decent attack, with Clarke knocking it back to Pritch, who rolled it out to O9, and again it was too far in front of Stewart, although I wasn’t the only one who thought Ross could have been there sooner.
Finally, on 75, there was a booking for a Rotherham player, after they’d got away with so much, for a trip on Gooch. Inside right position, and Gooch paired up with Pritch over the ball. The latter whizzed it round the wall, bit a foot wide and into the side netting as we were out of our seats in premature and inaccurate celebration.
As Gooch was being so much of a problem, they brought on a bloke with 3 on his back, but the next spell of action was at the Roker End, with a series of Rotherham corners on our right. It was all getting a bit fraught and frantic, but at last, after nigh on ninety minutes, we were battering the Millers.
After a series of blocked crosses and a corner or two at the right end, Clarke was played into space on our left, and he pinged in a decent cross. Stewart looked to have been marked out of things, but for some reason his marker flung himself at the ball six yards out and headed it in off the underside of the crossbar. Less than two minutes from the end of normal time. The mad bugger, he’d instantly written himself into Wearside folklore with a header that Niall Quinn would have been proud of, A header that may possibly move ahead of Bally’s against Chelsea, and perhaps, just perhaps, get near Gordon Armstrong’s against Chelsea. Well, probably not, and DVE Watson and Charlie Hurley scored better headers, but as OGs go, that was a belter.
Of course, that spurred us on and we flew at the visiting defence, we created a couple of chances that we put wide, then there were five added minutes and we piled forward. As those five minutes seemed to (thankfully for us) stretch out forever, Wright tried to be too clever and lost possession at the expense of a corner. Thankfully, we dealt with that and the ref, ever the dramatist, blew as the ball was in the air.
A point that we barely deserved, but a point that keeps us in the play-off places. In typical Sunderland style, it’s down the to the last game of the season, which means that we may or may not meet again before the end of this campaign. If you’re at Morecambe, I’ll see you there. Otherwise it’ll be a play-off semi. Or the first game of next season. Who knows?
Man of the Match? For me, Gooch did nowt wrong on the wrong side of the field, and was quickly reinstated as our most dangerous player when moved to the right.
Sorry, Mr Neil, you got your team selection wrong tonight. And that was confirmed when I got back to Bishop and had a chat with John Mullin’s cousin – scorer of the last goal at Roker Park. John, not his cousin, who’d played for Fleetwood when they first achieved league status. A fervent Burnley fan and a bit warm, as they say, he informed he that John isn’t in the best of health, so best wishes to him.
